The musings of a freeborn Englishman who is totally disenchanted with the dictatorial attitude that poses as democracy.

Monday, 5 December 2011

Where is the 'demos'?

Unbeknown, I suspect, to the greater percentage of people within the European Union a 'public' consultation has been taking place on the future of VAT, with a Green Paper subsequently being published.

From the 'Background' of this Green Paper, we are informed:

"With the adoption on 1 December 2010 of the Green Paper on the future of VAT¹, the European Commission launched a consultation process open to every stakeholder on an evaluation of all elements of the current VAT system as well as possible ways to strengthen its coherence with the single market and its capacity as a revenue raiser whilst reducing the cost of compliance." (ed: VAT¹)

Invariably such 'announcements' are made on the 'Europa' website and to those unfamiliar with the website, unless you know where to look, it would be virtually impossible for the average internet user to find the relevant document - even if he/she knew it existed. It is also worth noting that by 'googling' 'eu consultation on future of vat' there is not one link on the first page to any article by our MSM and the only reference of any note is one from HM Revenue and Customs. From the latter we find there were but 20 respondents - 15 from 'representative bodies'; 3 from 'individual companies; and just 2 from 'individuals'.

There were, in total, 1726 replies to this EU consultation - of which 1115 came from non-profit organisations and from the remaining 611 submissions, 191 or 19.5% were from organisations registered in the Transparency Register of interest representatives. Out of a population of 500million EU citizens just 55 submitted views - which point, in view of my previous observation about how these 'consultations' are announced, would lead one to believe that there is a definite 'plan' to keep 'kratos' away from 'demos' within the EU idea of democracy - but I digress.